Dedication.

* * * * *

TO MY MOTHER,


WHOSE LOVE FOR LOUDOUN IS NOT LESS ARDENT
AND UNDYING THAN MY OWN, THIS VOLUME,
THE SINGLE AMBITION AND FONDEST
ACHIEVEMENT OF MY LIFE,
IS AFFECTIONATELY
DEDICATED.


"Loudoun County exemplifies country life in about the purest and
pleasantest form that I have yet found in the United States. Not that
it is a rural Utopia by any means, but the chief ideals of the life
there are practically identical with those that have made country life
in the English counties world-famous. As a type, this is, in fact, the
real thing. No sham, no artificiality, no suspicion of mushroom
growth, no evidence of exotic forcing are to be found in Loudoun, but
the culmination of a century's development."

* * * * *

"So much, then, to show briefly that Loudoun County life is a little
out of the ordinary, here in America, and hence worth talking about.